Monday, March 28, 2011

CommonAngels is one the oldest angel investment groups on the east coast. Established in 1998, it's members include successful current and past entrepreneurs as well as executives of tech companies

Looking at the exits and current investment portfolio, we can count successful acquisitions and prospective IPO candidates among the list

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In the fall of 2010, CommonAngels announced a key new component to their firm’s financing strategy: the ability to invest in a greater number of startups at earlier stages, and in smaller amounts.

We asked Chris Sheehan, one of the managing directors about the new early stage investments as well as what changes he has seen inBostonangel investment.

Q. Buzz in theHub: What can you tell us about new early stage investments, your thesis or number of investments planned.

A. CS: We have been very active, leading large seed rounds in Practically Green and, with Kepha Partners, Clovr Media. (Clovr just closed a $8.3M Series A round led by Bain Capital Ventures.) In addition, we have invested in a half dozen seed opportunities including Blaze Software, Offerpop (NYC), Insight Squared, Yieldbot (NYC), Ayeah Games, and another still in stealth mode. It’s roughly about an investment per month.

Our investments fall into two general categories, although the lines between the two are admittedly blurred:
Large seed/small Series A rounds. We catalyze these financing rounds for entrepreneurs, bringing our expertise and connections to the table.
Small seed investments. Chris Sheehan and James Geshwiler, through their micro cap funds, make small seed investments to help entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground.

The seed investments are well suited to Internet and mobile opportunities where the cost of initial product development and distribution are significantly lower than in previous years.

Q: Buzz in theHub: Over the past 5 years, what changes have you observed in the Boston Angel community and what are the effects of those changes.

A. CS:

The availability of seed capital is higher; some of this is due to increase activity by theBostonangel community, both as individuals and as groups; some of its is due to micro cap VCs and traditional VCs getting more active.

A greater sense of energy and visibility permeates the angel community. Programs and events such as Tech Stars, Dog Patch Labs, angel group syndication, and Angel Boot camp help contribute to this. The upcoming national ACA conference will also be make an important contribution

Some diversification focus with new angel groups starting around clean tech and medical/life science investing.

Although anecdotal, it seems that level of investing by NYC andBostonbased angels in each others cities has increased

It is evident that CommonAngels is responding to the new market conditions and aggressively addressing the need for urgency, a larger basket of deals and evolving their investor member profile.

Their recent investments and new seed capabilities make it clear that entrepreneurs should include a stop at CommonAngels on their financing tour.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Each quarter, we publish the latest Boston startups which will soon be publicly launching. Although these companies have yet to officially open, we want to promote them and help them find their initial customer base. Apart from helping these companies market themselves, we also want them to get initial comments and feedback from the user community.

Before we introduce the newest batch of Boston startups, let’s take a look at the previous quarter list and see the progress of each company.

http://www.smoopa.com/ - Smoopa has launched early this year with the vision to change the way people shop. A company based in Massachusetts and California, Smoopa allows consumers to identify and share a good deal with friends, buy products online at a lesser price, or get an in-store price match with the use of a smartphone.

http://www.applicationville.com/ - Still under the wraps, Applicationville promises to offer a simple way to search, implement and use applications that meet the consumers’ needs. The company is still searching for mobile pioneers to join Applicationville and for investors who want to be part of the company.

http://www.penmia.com/ -Penmia has launched and is offering an accessible application that lets people record any moment in their lives including wonderful restaurant experiences, memorable first steps, grand vacations, and even exhilarating shopping sprees. The application can record anything and store data using 256-encryption.

http://noderabbit.com/ -NodeRabbit has launched with a mission to ‘make the software development team more successful through continuous deployment’ according to their website.

http://pre.nusage.com/ -Nusage has not launched yet. However, according to their website, they are like LinkedIn on Steroids. They are changing the way students, colleges and employers connect and interact with each other. The company, as stated in their website, is getting close to Beta.

http://socmetrics.com/ -SocMetics has launched with the aim to help companies engage key influencer in their niche to build world of mouth and increase sales.

So, those are the latest developments from last quarter’s list of startups. For this quarter, we have a new batch of web companies. Sign-up for the betas and show your support! We are all in this together.